Calculating the weather: Using mathematics to improve weather prediction

摘要

The impact of weather prediction cannot be underestimated. Accurate weather forecasting not only helps save lives by helping people prepare for extreme weather events, it is also vital to the economy, for example by helping farmers to decide on when to harvest a crop, or by impacting decisions on how much seasonal stock a business should produce. Weather forecasting has been steadily improving over the last 40 years, as a result of both better computing power and advanced mathematical techniques. For example, 20 years ago a three-day forecast was only as accurate as a five-day forecast is today.